Officials of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) attend to voters at a polling station in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on March 9, 2019, ahead of voting to elect governors and lawmakers in 29 of the nation’s 36 states two weeks after presidential and national assembly elections in which Buhari was elected for a second term. – Nigerians are going to the polls for the second time in a fortnight for governorship and state assembly elections, against a backdrop of tensions and fears of violence. (Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP)

The Department of State Services has denied arresting ICT staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for disclosing the Commission’s Server Identity Number to the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) and its Presidential Candidate Atiku Abubakar.

“The Service wishes to state that the information in its entirety is false and should be seen as a calculated effort to smear its image,” said DSS spokesman Peter Afunanya in a statement on Monday.

“None of such things happened as it never invited or arrested any INEC staff. There is no iota of truth in these allegations and the public is, therefore, enjoined to disregard them,” he added.

Abubakar had told Tribunal in March that the computer server of INEC revealed that he won in four of the states, Gombe, Niger, Kogi, and Kaduna, that INEC said Buhari won.

DSS has however claimed that the reports about its officials detaining and torturing the commission’s officials for three days by the service to find out who among them gave out the INEC’s server information to Abubakar are “simply manipulative, misleading, inciting and can only be considered as mischievous and unpatriotic.”

Atiku also said he won the poll with about 1.6 million votes ahead of President Muhammad Buhari in the 2019 presidential election.

But the All Progressives Congress in a petition by Buhari’s director of Campaign Festus Keyamo said the results presented by Abubakar were “fake results” prepared by the PDP prior to the election.